THE TEAK EEGION. 231 



to rolling away from beneath the unwary foot, the heat deve- 

 loped by the exertion was greatly out of proportion to the 

 progress made. At last, however, we sighted the red-topped 

 tree under which we had marked our stag ; and then " the 

 Moon," stripping himself of next to his last fragment of rai- 

 ment, swarmed up a teak pole to look out ahead. Nothing 

 was seen however, and so we stole on again, friend Chand 

 swarming up trees at intervals, and I balancing myself in fear 

 and trembling on the rounded boulders. We were not to 

 succeed however ; for the Bheel in coming off a tree acci- 

 dentally stepped on a leaf, and the game was up. Though I 

 dashed ahead at once, knowing that we could steal in no 

 further, it was too late ; and all I saw was a dark form run- 

 ning low, but at a great pace, through -the teak scrub, too far 

 off for a shot. I believe that this was about the only sambar 

 then on the hills ; for though the forms where they had been 

 lying were numerous, and both T. and I hunted the livelong 

 day for them, not another hoof or horn did we see. The 

 Bheels said they had all gone to " Dhowtea" a place which 

 we afterwards found was so difficult of access that very few of 

 them had ever been there ; and so they used it, much as we 

 do " Jericho," to express an indefinite region where everything 

 that can't be found elsewhere must certainly have gone. 



Greatly to the surprise of the Bheels, we did shortly after 

 this go to Dhowtea ; and if its name was great before it 

 certainly became much more so after we had been there. 

 Neither of us ever saw anything so extraordinary in our lives ; 

 and to the Bheels there was nothing short of magical devilry 

 in what we found, or rather did not find. Dhowtea was a 

 hollow on the top of the range surrounded by flat plateaux of 

 small elevation, with a fine stream of water in the centre, and 

 long grass all about. After a long struggle through thick jungle 



